China bans fundraising through ICOs China has banned and made illegal the practice of raising funds through digital token based initial coin offerings (ICO). The rise of cryptocurrencies has led to $2.2 billion having been raised through ICOs this year alone. Chinese regulators have described initial coin offerings as “a form of unapproved illegal public financing” [...]

Chinese Overseas Investments Now Restricted China has tightened the reins on external investment to combat rising debt ratios for domestic companies. One of the “restricted” areas is “entertainment." We are not lawyers, but this seems to include digital gaming. We will work with our friends at Pillar Legal to sort out what it really means for [...]

China Unicom to Raise $11.7 Billion from Private Firms China Unicom is said to be raising $11.7 billion from investors including the likes of Tencent and Alibaba. China Unicom will be the first of the state-run telecom entities to receive private capital and mixed ownership. China Mobile is still the world's largest mobile phone operator in [...]

According to Tencent’s Q1 2017 financial release dated 17 May 2017, total online games revenue in the first quarter was 22,800 million RMB ($3,360 million). That’s $3 billion in one quarter alone, just from online games! The financial report says that PC client-based games revenue was 14,100 million RMB ($2,070 million) and mobile games revenue was [...]

The largest games company in the world, Tencent has been making headlines recently due to continued investment in overseas and domestic games companies, its ever-growing market cap, and the hit mobile game Honor of Kings. This July, Tencent introduced restrictions on Honor of Kings players under 12 years old, restricting them to only one hour of [...]

VNG Plans US IPO VNG Corp has signed a preliminary agreement with Nasdaq Inc to explore an IPO. VNG, founded in 2004, has long been a strong operator in Vietnam. Vietnam, along with Indonesia and Thailand, are three of the countries we recommend watching for the highest revenue and growth potential as of our 2016 Southeast [...]

The China PC Online Games Market Topic Report, the 1st of 5 companion reports to Niko’s 2017 China Digital Games Market Data Report, is now available. Key takeaways about the Chinese PC online games market in 2017 include: Despite the rapid ascent of Mobile games and the legal launch of consoles in 2015 after a 14-year [...]

China On Track to Phase Out Paper Money China was the first country to introduce paper money in 740 B.C. and now it is believed that China may be the first country to phase it out completely. According to the article on Motherboard (NSFW), "Pretty much every shop, restaurant and bar accepts WeChat and/or Alipay these [...]

A notable trend in China’s digital games market is successful PC to mobile game adaptations. What we have seen is that hardcore PC-based MMORPGs, for the most part, have been relaunched as mobile games, and this is a trend that is relevant in 2017. Most of the Top 10 grossing mobile games on the iOS chart [...]

Overwatch Passes 30 Million Players Blizzard Entertainment announced this week that Overwatch, its team-based shooter, has passed 30 million players since its launch a year ago. They recently announced hitting the 25 million mark in January. There is no clear delineation on what percentage of these players are on PC or Xbox One or PlayStation 4. [...]